Lecture 1: Flashcards
What is the clinical aspect of emotion in psychology?
How can we help control harmful or dysfunctional emotions
What is the cognitive aspect of emotion?
How do emotions influence people’s thought processes
What is the soical aspect?
How do our emotions impact relationships
what is the personality aspect?
How and why do people differ in their emotions
What is the biological/neuroscience aspect?
What biological mechanisms underlie emotional processes
Do we observe emotions or do we infer them?
We infer emotions
What is emotion?
“An inferred complex sequence of reactions to a stimulus [including] cognitive evaluations, subjective changes, autonomic and neural arousal, impulses to action, and behavior designed to have an effect upon the stimulus that initiated the complex sequence”
What is Plutchik’s definition of emotion?
Emotions are:
Functional - quickly & efficiently facilitating action that’ll have an effect around us
Responses - to objects & events that take place in the environ (external environ)
Inferred - since they take place inside people
What are the 4 main aspects of emotion?
Cognitive appraisal - subjective interpretation of a situation
Feelings - your perception of a situation (private and subjective)
Physiological changes - how your body reacts to a particular siuation
Behavior - how we act regarding a particular emotion (language, facial expression, voice)
What is the general rule about the aspects of emotion?
If any aspects are missing, it is not considered an emotion anymore
What are the 3 classic theories of emotion?
James-lang Theory
Cannon-Bard Theory
Schachter-Singer Theory
What is the “common sense” view?
Eliciting event -> feeling -> behavior
Emotional behavior is caused by feelings
What is the James Lang Theory?
Eliciting event -> Physiological changes & behaviors -> feeling
Subjective feeling is caused by awareness of physiological change (interoception) & behaviour (sensation of muscles)
emotions are instinctive responses to important events in the environ
Diff emotions = diff physiological profiles
What is the James “bear in the woods” ex?
- guy sees a bear in the woods
- guy’s body prepares him to run (sweating)
- guy’s perception of his own physical change & action is the fear
What is wrong with the James view?
You don’t always run away from the bear (it can be in a zoo etc.)
What was the modification to James-Lang theory?
They added appraisal - subjective interpretation of what a stimulus means for our goals, concerns, & well-being
What is the James-Lang Theory, Revised?
Eliciting event -> Appraisal -> physiological changes & behvaiors –> feeling
(u only run from the bear if u see it as a threat
what is the Cannon-Bard theory?
Eliciting event causes appraisal, behvaior, & feelings (all at the same time)
-u see the stimulus/evaluate the situation, experience physiological changes and evaluate feeling - all of it happens together
who said that diff emotion feelings may be caused by diff patterns of physiological change?
William Jmaes
What is the Schachter-Singer Theory?
Physiological changes are similar across emotions - not specific enough to differentiate them
What are the 3 parts to Schachter-singer theory?
physio change -> look for plausible eliciting event -> appraisal ->feeling and behavior
1. Non-specific physiological changes occur, just aroused vs. not aroused
2. Aroused physiology and feelings make us look to the environment for an explanation
3. This explanation determines our appraisal, the specific label we give to feelings, and resulting behavior
What was the experiment by Schachter & Singer?
Qs: When aroused, do people decide what they are feeling based on their environment?
One with adrenaline with telling them u will have physiological changes
One with adrenaline without telling them
One group with placebo
half the group was paired with a happy person to elicit emotions
half the group was paired with an angry person to elicit angry emotions
What is arousal manipulation?
injection with epinephrine (informed or effects) with epinephrine (uniformed) or placebo
what is situation manipulation?
Euphoria - confederate acting happy playing around vs. anger - insulting questionnaire, confederate angry
What were the results of the study?
participants that were injected were happier (not sig results)
In Epi-uninformed, Happiness ratio higher in Euphoria than Anger condition, as hypothesized
Participants were more happy than angry in all conditions.
Happiness ratio highest in Epi-informed Anger condition
Are people’s interpretation of arousal influenced by the situation? (from study)
slightly but not strongly
what happens is you tell people to expect arousal?
it detaches the link between the situation and emotional feelings
summarize the classic theories.
James lang - emotion is caused by physiological responses
Cannon Bard - you respond emotionally to a stressor and physiological changes happen at the same time
Schachter Singer - after responding to a stressor, u appraise a threat at the same time as physiological changes and then feelings
What are the modern theories of emotion?
Basic/discrete emotions theory
Core affect & physiological construction
The component process model
What is the basic emotions theory?
Eliciting event -> appraisal -> cog changes, physio changes, feelings, action tendencies -> observable behavior
- categorically distinct entities, each serving a diff adaptive function
-coordinate diff aspects of emotion responding into a package
-some emotion categories are inherent in human nature
which classic theory is the most similar to basic emotions theory?
James Lang theory
What is the criteria for basic emotions?
1) universal among humans
2) have a universal, innate form of non-verbal expression
(facial vocal)
3) should be evident early in life (no clear cut to what is
early)
4) should be physiologically distint from one another in the body and brain
What is the Core Affect theory?
Eliciting event -> valence (pleasantness), phsio arousal -> feeling
-prioritizes subjective feeling asthe defining aspect of emotion
- arousal is non-specific, similar across emotions
- external eliciting events may cause changes in valence & arousal but not always (hangry)
What is the circumplex model (core affect)?
axis of Activated, deactivated, displeasure, pleasure
- based on the degree of emotions
- placing closeley related words together
what is the evaluative space model?
circle, more specific?
What are the similarities between the circumplex and evaluative space model?
- both emphasize the feeling aspect of emotion
- both agree that these feelings are described as a continuous dimension
what a is core effect?
an emotion in terms of dimension
What is the physiological construction theory?
eliciting event -> valence, physio arousal -> feeling, appraisal, other cog changes, action tendencies, observable behavior
- diff aspects of emotion are only loosly correlated
Are emotion cateogries learned or innate?
They are learned and not innate, universal or objectively real
What is the most similar classic theory to physiological construction?
Schachter singer theory
- both argue tht physio arousal is too general
- both say that people use info from the situation to categorize those feelings and decide on behavior
- both say that physio arousal is not necessary for ppl to feel
What is the component process model?
Eliciting events -> appraisals (expectedness, pleasantness, goal obstruction, cetainty, control) -> emotion (cog changes, physio changes, feelings, action tendencies)
People continuously interpret their environ using a series of all-purpose appraisals (not categorical appraisals like danger)
each appraisal has independent effects on cognition, physio etc.
the combined effects across apraisals produce emotion
What do the theories have in common?
- all theories allow for both nature and nurture influences on emotion
-all theories propose that emotions serve valuable functions
all theories acknowledge appraisal as a crucial predictor of emotional experience & behavior
What are research methods for inducing emotions?
Relived experience - vividly recall & relive a personal experience with strong emotion
scenarios - read & imagine yourself in a short stroy intended to elicit particular emotion
photographs & film clips
what are advantages of inducing emotions research methods?
face valid
target specific emotion states
what are disadvantages of inducing emotions research methods?
evoke emotins thru a memory or imaginary scene
- may not recall accurately or experience the emotions in the same way
eliciiting emotions thru an experiment is not as strong as the emotions in a real life event
What are research methods for measuring emotions?
Self reports - retings or discriptions of feelings, thoughts, other aspect of emotion
physiological measurements - measures of bodily or brain actvity that change in response to emotion stimuli (ex. bp)
behaviors - observable actions such as facial expressions, speech, task performance & agression
